Susanne Weber

Intrapreneur: An Entrepreneur Within a Company

Rapid changes in social and economic life claim for new and other so-called 21st Century Skills (Mayer & Solga, 2008, pp. 2-3). Thus, the labor market has increased its interest in employees with entre- and intrapreneurial mindsets for mastering the tremendous competitions in various markets. The comparative advantages in today’s competition are to a smaller extent rather cost issues, than innovations and unique selling propositions (USP) (Antoncic & Hisrich, 2001).

Mastery-Learning mit Hilfe eines multimedial repräsentierten Modellunternehmens in der Ausbildung von Industriekaufleuten

Das dargestellte Projekt geht davon aus, dass eine zukunftsbezogene kauf- mannische Ausbildung die folgenden Zielsetzungen aktiv aufgreifen und — entsprechend den jeweils ortlich gegebenen Moglichkeiten — umsetzen sollte: Anderung der Ziel- und Inhaltsstruktur der kaufmannischen Ausbildung im Hinblick auf einen systemtheoretisch orientierten Ansatz; Anderung der didaktischen und methodischen Konzepte im Hinblick auf handlungsorientierte Verfahren; Einsatz komplexer Lehr-Lern-Arrangements (in sequentieller Verknupfung); Nutzung der neuen Technologien (bis hin zum Anschlus an Verfahren moderner Informationsverarbeitung, wie z. B. SAP); Veranderung der Diagnose-, Prufungs- und Evaluationsverfahren, damit diese den neuen didaktischen Anforderungen (die zugleich okonomisch gefordert sind) entsprechen; Verbesserung der sachlichen Ausstattung von Schulen und Hochschulen und Modernisierung der Aus- und Weiterbildung von Lehrern und Ausbildern.

Intrapreneurship Competence as a Manifestation of Work Agency: A Systematic Literature Review

Innovations are key factors for economic growth. In times of globalisation, rapidly changing markets, and economic crises, they represent an essential competitive factor for companies. This outstanding role of innovations has resulted in the requirement of new skills. The labour market is showing an increased interest in entrepreneurially oriented staff members, so-called intrapreneurs. In this context, intrapreneurship competence – the entrepreneurial thinking and acting ability of employees – constitutes an important 21st century skill. As we understand it, intrapreneurship is directed towards individuals’ innovative behaviour with regard to the generation of innovative project ideas and the planning and implementation of such projects within the organisational practice. Previous research on intrapreneurship has particularly focused on the organisational perspective (e.g. Antoncic and Hisrich, J Bus Ventur 16(5):495–527, 2001; Alpkan et al. Manag Decision, 48(5):732–755, 2010), rather than on the individual-oriented level. While considering this individual behavioural perspective of intrapreneurship, it is our aim to (a) highlight significant dispositions concerning the facets of knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA) that are identified as being characteristic for mastering typical intrapreneurship challenges and (b) consolidate these findings within a competence model for intrapreneurship that is derived from the identified dispositions. For this purpose, we ran a comprehensive literature review according to the methodological procedure suggested by Cooper. Synthesizing research: a guide for literature reviews, 3rd edn. Sage Publications, Inc, Thousand Oaks, 2006.

Measuring Intrapreneurship Competence as a Manifestation of Work Agency in Different Educational Settings

The concept of work agency is related to the notion that individuals make choices and engage in goal-oriented actions. It is an ability that is perceived as a necessary 21st century skill and it is highly desired in the labour market. Multiple authors have discussed the concept and its various facets in different ways. In the field of business, we perceive intrapreneurship (IP) competence to be a manifestation of work agency; that is, it is the ability to think and act in an innovative manner in challenging and varying business situations (Weber et al. Intrapreneur: an entrepreneur within a company. In: Weber S, Oser FK, Achtenhagen F, Fretschner M, Trost S (eds) Becoming an entrepreneur. Professional and VET learning: Bd. 3. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, pp 279–302, 2014). To develop this ability, we operationalised it in a domain-specific IP competence model, created a technology-based performance assessment tool and measured IP competence in the educational setting of vocational education and training (VET) (Weber et al. Intrapreneur: an entrepreneur within a company. In: Weber S, Oser FK, Achtenhagen F, Fretschner M, Trost S (eds) Becoming an entrepreneur. Professional and VET learning: Bd. 3. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, pp 279–302, 2014). As there is no gold standard for testing the construct validity of such a technology-based assessment of IP competence, we examined known groups (or extreme groups) that exhibit or logically should exhibit different levels of the construct. Thereby, we determine whether differences can be seen in the scores of the investigated groups. From the prior research concerning the chances of success in entre-/intrapreneurship, we know that context plays a decisive role in the acquisition and development of IP competence (Baron and Markman. J Bus Ventur 18(1):41–60, 2003; Bosma et al. Global entrepreneurship monitor, special report on entrepreneurship employee activity. Retrieved from http://www.babson.edu/executive-education/thought-leadership/premium/Documents/90246%20EEA%20Report%202011.pdf, 2013; Bruderl et al. Der Erfolg neugegrundeter Betriebe [The success of newly founded firms]. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, 2009; Kyndt and Baert J Vocat Behav 90(7):13–25, 2015). Therefore, we also conducted a comparison between groups of learners enrolled in different educational programmes as special ‘educational settings’ (Bosma et al. Global entrepreneurship monitor, special report on entrepreneurship employee activity. Retrieved from http://www.babson.edu/executive-education/thought-leadership/premium/Documents/90246%20EEA%20Report%202011.pdf, 2013). The analyses used in the competence measurement were run based on item response theory (IRT), while for the group comparisons, we calculated ANOVAs. The results show that our technology-based performance assessment tool seems to validly measure IP competence because there are plausible differences identified between the known groups, a result that is also supported by the literature. Furthermore, the analyses show that young adults already possess an impressive level of IP competence when they enter the labour market after having left the VET system. However, it has also been demonstrated that the development of IP competence is dependent on an individual’s level of general education. Nevertheless, it is simultaneously boosted by the completion of an apprenticeship. Thus, learners equipped with only an intermediate school-leaving certificate (in Germany: Realschule) are able to catch up to some degree at least with university bachelor’s degree students when they go on to complete an apprenticeship. Hence, VET seems able to (partially) close the gap between educational settings in terms of developing IP competence as a vital twenty-first century skill that is highly prized in the labour market.

A Research-and Evidence-Based Entrepreneurship Education Program at Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU), Munich

Developing an entrepreneurial culture and building entrepreneurial competencies is the topic of various stakeholders – as governments, local industry, labor market, politicians etc. Entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and attitudes have been declared as key competencies of lifelong learning throughout Europe (European Commission [EC], 2007).

Competence Domains and Vocational-Professional Education in Germany

Discussing competence issues for vocational-professional education in Germany, one has to take into account its ‘collective skill formation regime’ that means a strong commitment of the state as well as of the firms. As this structure and organization have a long and tension-intensive historical tradition, we describe firstly some cornerstones of the German skill formation system as it is structured nowadays and installed by Federal Law. Secondly, the focus is on the alignment of ‘curriculum-instruction-assessment’ triad to secure a powerful organization for a competence-oriented VET. Thirdly, a comprehensive VET-PISA concept is introduced as a suggestion for modelling, measuring competence domains as well as monitoring VET on a programme and national level. Therefore, three pre-studies are introduced: a feasibility study for a large-scale assessment in VET, a study for identifying cross-national overlaps of competence in the area of technique, business and health and a study on first authentic assessments. Finally, an example of the current pilot from the business VET sector within the national ASCOT Initiative is introduced.

Kompetenz und Identität als Konzepte beruflichen Lernens über die Lebensspanne

Fur die berufliche Bildung werden in der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion, aber auch in politisch verantwortlich gefuhrten Debatten, drei zentrale Ziele eingefordert (fur die ersten drei Punkte vgl. auch den Beitrag von Achtenhagen & Baethge in diesem Band): (1) Die Entwicklung der individuellen beruflichen Regulationsfahigkeit — unter einer individuellen Nutzerperspektive und dem zentralen Aspekt der personalen Autonomie; (2) die Sicherung der Humanressourcen einer Gesellschaft; (3) die Gewahrleistung gesellschaftlicher Teilhabe und Chancengleichheit; (4) die nachhaltige Flexibilitat des Individuums und des beruflichen Kontextes im Hinblick auf eine ubergeordnete, gemeinsam geteilte,Vision‘(als gemeinsame Entwicklung von innovativen Losungen, die kein Individuum allein hervorbringen konnte und die mehr sind als die Summe der Einzelleistungen).

Designing Competence Assessment in VET for a Digital Future

This chapter gives an overview of the design, implementation, and evaluation of a technology-based assessment (TBA) measuring trainee competencies in the field of economics. Current research on “Industry 4.0” or “digital natives” demonstrates how quickly technological advances change the working world and how important information and communications (ICT) skills already are in the workplace. Digitalization not only entails new requirements for working but also has far-reaching implications for vocational learning and vocational educational design. In line with the idea of triadic assessment (Pellegrino (2012) The design of an assessment system focused on student achievement: A learning sciences perspective on issues of competence, growth and measurement. In: Bernholt, Neumann and Nentwig (eds) Making it tangible. Learning outcomes in science education. Waxmann, Munster, pp 79–107; Pellegrino et al., (2003) Knowing what students know: the science and design of educational assessment. National Academy Press, Washington, DC), this leads to a growing need for appropriate assessments to be aligned with curriculum and instruction. Hence, we introduce an instrument that aims to bridge the gap between work reality and assessment, using a prototype of an authentic workplace simulation. More specifically, this technology-based tool visualizes work and business processes in an industrial enterprise and requires test-takers to act and make decisions in computer-based tasks (e.g., editing text files and tables, answering emails, or dealing with daily test statistics). In order to reflect digitalized workplace processes, technological aspects of real work environments must be didactically modeled and installed as usable features. Thus, the usability of the installed features is crucial, as technical authenticity constitutes a basic requirement of valid assessment. For the purpose of testing the usability of this simulation, a think-aloud study of the user interface was conducted with a total of N = 37 business education students.

Domain-specific aspects of teaching-learning research

Ausgangspunkt ist eine kritische Sichtweise auf die vorherrschenden, vornehmlich von der Psychologie beeinflussten Muster der Lehr-Lern-Forschung, bei denen die inhaltliche Dimension des Lehrens und Lernens – auf die es ja eigentlich zentral ankommt – systematisch vernachlassigt wird. Anhand zweier Beispiele wird dargestellt, wie sich Inhalte praziser erfassen und fur eine Verbesserung des Lehrens und Lernens besser nutzen lassen. Fur den Englischanfangsunterricht wird gezeigt, welche Moglichkeiten die Erhebung und Auswertung von Verhaltensweisen von Lehrenden und Schulern zusammen mit der Erfassung und Analyse von syntaktischen Strukturen der im Unterricht und im eingesetzten Lehrbuch verwendeten Satze mit Hilfe eines linguistischen Modells bieten. Fur den Wirtschaftslehreunterricht liefern Ziel- und Inhaltskriterien eines komplexen Lehr-Lern-Arrangements zusammen mit den gegebenen instruktionalen und Assessmentmoglichkeiten Ansatzpunkte einer Optimierung von Lehr-Lern-Prozessen sowohl auf der Geschaftsprozess- als auch der Intrapreneurshipebene. Deutlich wird, dass es die Betonung der Ziel- und Inhaltsdimension ist, die diesen Fortschritt ermoglicht.

Opportunity Recognition as Part of Intrapreneurship Competence - An Analysis of Exam Essays of German Industrial Clerks

This book will concentrate on economic competence and financial literacy of young adults in the US, Europe and South America. The subjects of the research are mainly individuals who have begun an apprenticeship or university education. Economic competence and financial literacy are of special interest for this group because they are usually in the unique position of being responsible for managing their own financial affairs autonomously, often for the first time. Furthermore, economic competence is key to social participation and active citizenship. (DIPF/Orig.)